Greatest Mistakes of World War 2

according tho stephen e ambrose omaha was the most fortified becuse it was easy to fortify plus rommel new if the the allies invaded at normandy they would have to use the area code named omaha, whilst utah was the easiest because it was hard to fortify and the bristish beachers had a little more deffense because they could fortify house and various other building in the vancinity. (according to my sources about 120 men died on utah during the entire day whilst the same number dide within and hour at omaha)

 

Ebar, I totally agree that Omaha was the toughest nut, but even if the DD tanks had been launced closer and made it through (sea conditions were also worse off Omaha) it is unlikely they would have made a great difference.

The tanks that were landed at Omaha during the assualt landed from LCTs, my point was that Dieppe showed that tanks could be landed from landing craft even in the face of heavy fire and that this lesson was ignored. Dieppe had clearly shown that landing in the face of a prepared position would lead to heavy casualties and this lesson was also ignored. The supporting naval destroyers mounted 5 x 127mm guns on average, so one naval DD was worth more than a platoon of 5 x 75mm tanks.

 

Ok...
1) one of the big advantages of the DD tank is surprise. If you aren't expecting a take to suddenly climb up out of the water, you are not as well placed to destroy it...
2) beaches without prepared positions were not easy to find in 1944...
3) a tank is a much more stable gun platform than a ship, which is a big advantage...

My big question is this:

Just how effective was naval bombardment at this stage?
After all, bombardments work best with plunging fire, which caves in the roof of bunkers, can destroy trenches, can hit troops hiding behind lumps in the gound, etc etc.
Naval guns are high-velocity, low-trajectory. They just don't seem suited to the role of artillery... (IMHO)

 

You can't compare naval support to a tank on the beach.

Naval support is fired from considerable distances and targets are chosen either via a slow vulnrable chain of command off the beach or at random by the gunners.

Also as Ricky said, the naval guns are not overly suited for knocking out specific bunkers/mg nests. Could a destroyer hit an MG at 2000m?

I wasn't aware that any tanks made it to Omaha in the assault wave especially in LCT's. I assume the reason why LCT's were not used was the fact that they are vulnrable and obvious (sooo much bigger than anything else approaching) and have an exit only a single tank wide. What happens if that tanks stalls, breaks down or is hit?

DD tanks did have a great element of surprise and the tanks landed in a scattered pattern rather than from a single exit ramp.

The discussion of the DD's on Omaha probably deserves an entire thread but their failure was mainly due to bad luck. Missing commands, heavy waves, poor initial orders to deploy at a distance etc etc.

As for getting off the beachs, Monty's original plan was than armoured spearheads would penetrate off the beaches ASAP even on D Day itself and at extreme cost in material. However the loss would be insignificant vs the disruption forward armoured forces would cause. However commanders and tank crews were reluctant to press on as planned as it went against their training.

FNG

 

I think about 4 of a planned 32 DD Shermans made it ashore on Omaha beach, but just like every other unit they weren't where they were supposed to be.

Frankly I've lost the direction of this debate. Who is trying to prove what in the case of lessons learnt from Dieppe as applied on D-Day?

 

This debate had a direction?

One big mistake was to keep Sir Claude Auchinleck as head of the '8th Army', and to allow his bizarre favouritism of Major General Neil Methuen Ritchie.

Their adherance to out-moded tactics (and strategy) as well as their inability to communicate effectively (or to install effectve communications!) went a long way to keeping the German efforts in the desert alive fo so long. How often did we built a numerical advantage in armour, simply to lose it by dispersal of units and the folly of the 'charge' tactic? (see an enemy - charge at him!)

 

Yep, British tank tactics sucked. Which is shocking as by 44 they had 5 years with which to study German tactics. The same goes for British inter unit cooperation, like AT units, AA units, artillary, transport, Ground attack etc much of which were under unified control and leadership under the German Panzer system.

A system which the US marines have copied very well with self reliant and varied forces.

FNG

 

Panzer system?

Either you are referring to a standard divisional organization in which all sorts of support units are incorporated (which was the case for all countries' divisions in WW2), or you are referring to the spearhead part of Blitzkrieg tactics, where air support was closely involved, but which the British also succesfully used in the opening phase of Garden.

 

A single Panzer division had within it, tanks, infantry, air and ground transport, dedicated AA units, recon/AC units, AT units, artillary and ground attack aircraft all under a single commander and which could accessed as part of the division.

Whilst the British Armoured Divisions contained elements of this they were not complete and often broken up in battle so did not fight as a single entity. This is shown in North Africa.

How many Panzer Divisions were there in comparision with the British combined armoured divisions?

As for Market Garden, ignoring the airbone element, wasn't the ground forces XXX Corp which in itself was a product of multiple divisions and regiments?

FNG

 

Not happy about the above. Certainly not true prior to 1943.

 

As far as I know, all Armoured divisions and generally all divisions worked like this. At least all divisions have their own artillery, recon and anti-tank units. This is not just a German thing, surely!

By the way, by calling the operation "Garden" I ignored the airborne bit as that is operation "Market" where the ground attack is "Garden". In this attack, the Guards Armoured division made good use of its tanks, recon vehicles, anti-tank guns (fireflies), mechanized infantry and air support to get through the German lines.

 

This seems highly unlikely. A US Marine division that had all organic support units included numbered ~70 thousand men. Panzer Divisions, according to Tables of Organizations numbered at most 20 thousand or so.
(late in the war more like 10 thousand).

 

Regarding the differences between Omaha and the other beaches several things should be pointed out. The American General asked for more preinvasion bombardment but was overruled by the Air Chief Marshall Tedder who felt that it would give away the surprise that the invasion plans counted on.

Also the Brits and Canadians landed an hour later thus had an additional hour of bombardment.
Finally, the Brits and Canadians were opposed by Ost Divisions at least half of which were made up of captured Russian and Polish troops whereas the crack, battled hardened, 352nd division was at Omaha.

 

352nd Infantry was not battle-hardened; it had been formed in December 1943 out of Russian front veterans and filled up with replacements in the three months that followed. In June 1944 it had not seen battle as a unit. Just 50% of its officers were veterans. According to its assistant chief of staff, when the division was deployed for battle its training was incomplete; in the three months remaining for the invasion the officers had 3 hours a day to improve this situation. About 10% of the divisional personell were Russian volunteers. The division was given only one "issue" of ammunition and had to improve its own defences which were judged as highly unsatisfactory in March 1944.

By D-Day the mentioned officer considered the unit "ready" in that it was capable of fighting; its training he judges as incomplete and its defences as "improved", but not good.

 

from Britannica Online:

From historynet.com

From answers.com/topic/battle-of-normandy(wikipedia reference)

From Operation Overlord: The Invasion Of Fortress Europe
http://www.princeton.edu/~ferguson/adw/d-day.shtml

From valourandhorror.com (Canadian site)

I grabbed these off the net quickly because they were available on short notice. Everything I have read was consistent in the point that the 352nd was the best German unit involved in the Overlord landings.

 

many things added to the omaha battle.

The DD tanks sank. +1 Axis
The sea was rougher than expected +1 Axis
The pre planned air strike failed +1 Axis
The pre planned rocket strike failed +1 Axis
The natural defenses were the toughest to crack +2 Axis

Whilst the defenders fought hard they were just another factor +1, or 2 depending on what view you take, Axis.

All in all the odds were stacked more heavily against the Allies. It looks bad only becuase the other 4 beaches were taken far more easily than anticpated. In reality the supreme command expected casulty figures like Omaha on all the beaches, if not even worse!

Just reading Overlord by Max Hastings at the mo, it seems some DD tanks did reach Omaha, but they were late and could do little due to limited numbers. They also used LCT's right onto the beaches as well but not on the first intial wave. However the DD tanks were supposed to land first in front of the infantry as a surprise tactic. Those crew must have been mad/brave. To prey their tank floats and then be the first, alone, to land to soften up the beach before the infantry arrive.

Are there any books specifically dedicated to Omaha and/or the beach landings as Hastings book seems more generalised/strategic in overview.

FNG

 

I saw a TV program about a year ago that pinned the blame on the failure of the Omaha DD's to the fact that soldiers not sailors manned them.

It was thought for a long time that the DD basically went down like stones after being launched. However in recent years many of the wrecks have been discovered and it has be found that most got quite far before going down.

At Omaha there was also a current as a right angle to the beach that push tank sideways. Tanks would have been using landmarks to navigate as they were pushed sideways they started to turn toward these landmarks exposing their much weaker sides to the waves

One of the advantages the DD had over some of the more sea worthy machines the Americans had in the pacific was that until they started to clabber up the beach it wasn't obvious what they were.

 

Another HUGE mistake in WW2 was not cutting to Murmansk supply route. There were many choices: destroying the convoy ships, capturing Murmansk, cutting the Murmansk railway... The supply through Murmansk replaced to vehicle casualties of year 1941 and in 1944-1945 vehicles for 60 (!) motored divisions were supplied.

 

But there was also Archangels harbour too. Therefore cutting Murmansk railway or capturing Murmansk wont be adequate solution.

 

But. Murmansk is the only harbour in Russia that is open all year (there is no ice). Arkhangelsk is frozen 3 months a year. And Vladivostok is frozen also for three months.